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Out of the ordinary

The genius of much folk music, whether traditional or contemporary, is that it takes perfectly ordinary situations and makes them interesting, significant, even mythical. Love, friendship, birth and death, natural beauty— all these are common enough, but all feel distinctive and unique to the one experiencing them. Hearing a song about the very thing happening … Continue reading Out of the ordinary

Lame literature

I was prompted to get back to this too-long-neglected blog by a friend’s posting on Facebook, a link to a site called Awful Library Books. It has an amusing selection of truly odd titles that were actually found in real libraries. Good books tend to survive, one way or another, but unfortunately bad ones do … Continue reading Lame literature

Cautionary tales

Struwwelpeter is a classic example of the cautionary tale. It’s a collection of illustrated stories in verse showing misbehaving children and the dreadful consequences they suffer. First published in 1845, its original title was Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder mit 15 schön kolorierten Tafeln für Kinder von 3-6 Jahren (Funny Stories and Whimsical Pictures with 15 … Continue reading Cautionary tales

Discoveries

I’ve been roaming through this old anthology, published in the 1920s and entitled, with great simplicity, The Canadian Poetry Book. Without even looking at the preface or the endnotes you can tell it’s a school text. The names of Doris Morgan and her sisters from Lucky Lake, Saskatchewan are written on the cover and flyleaf. One … Continue reading Discoveries

Poems for fall

So many autumn poems are melancholy. Granted, some autumn days are conducive to melancholy: dull, damp and grey. Dry leaves turn to wet brown muck in the streets and you retreat inside with thoughts of blankets and hot drinks. Fall is equated, understandably, with old age and fading beauty. It’s linked with decay, death and loss. … Continue reading Poems for fall

All there is to see

I just re-read  My Family And Other Animals by Gerald Durrell for at least the fifth time. It’s an account of the time his family spent on the Greek island of Corfu when he was a boy. My husband and I both enjoy this book, but have discovered that we can’t read it at bedtime, … Continue reading All there is to see

Cows, horses, people

I recently saw an exhibit of work by Joe Fafard at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (the day before it ended, naturally). It was truly delightful, and I wondered what it is that makes his work so attractive. It might be a romantic thing city-dwellers have for farm animals, but then again, there’s nothing romanticized about … Continue reading Cows, horses, people

Have you seen birds?

This spring, for some reason, I’ve been noticing birds more than ever before. Their sounds, their colors, their omnipresence. And that reminded me of Barbara Reid’s lovely illustrations for the children’s book, Have You Seen Birds? It’s worth a look even if you don’t have a child to read it with. Reid’s Plasticine illustrations are … Continue reading Have you seen birds?